From glass to life: a commentary on the assessment of the reproductive potential of cryopreserved human oocytes

© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Oocyte cryopreservation is one of the more recently established methods of assisted reproduction technologies (ART). Vitrifcation procedures have helped to overcome most technical difculties enabling better oocyte survival after warming. There are diferent indications for oocyte cryopreservation. The technology can be used if the partner fails to produce sperm for an IVF treatment on the day of oocyte collection. For patients at risk of ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS), we could also opt not only for “freeze-all embryos” but possibly also for “freeze-all oocytes.” Also, women who may have no partner or may lose their fertility potential due to surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, autoimmune diseases, medical conditions causing ovarian insuffciency, or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation could store their oocytes for future use. Planned oocyte cryopreservation can also be used as a tool to help mitigate age-related fertility decline regardless of whether a patient is partnered. All such procedures raise questions both to patients and healthcare professionals: Can we predict the chance for the parenthood from one medically assisted reproduction (MAR) cycle with cryopreserved oocytes? What is the minimal number of cryopreserved oocytes needed to have a reasonable likelihood of success? Is there an upper age limit for women to store their oocytes?The paper is a part of research programme P3-0327 funded by the Slovenian Research Agency.